By Laurie Baiz, Director of Life Kids Children’s Ministry
The Pre-K and Kindergarten classes on Sunday are simply a delight to watch. The children are learning so much about God’s Word and enjoy all the different activities that they get to do throughout the morning. Both age groups begin in their separate classrooms and are encouraged by their teachers to take part in Explore Time. This is a where the kids get to touch, create, and play with different objects that will correlate with the Big God Story they will hear later in the morning.
After Explore Time, the Pre-K class walks down to room 111 where they join the Kindergarteners for worship. The kids sing, do hand motions, and dance their praises to the Lord! Then they gather together and get ready for the Big God Story told by one of our volunteer storytellers. This wonderful large group time is designed to encourage the kids to be interactive with the storyteller.
There are many sections to this part of the lesson, such as Chloe’s Rules, Mail Time, the Wardrobe of Wonder, and the Big God Story. Chloe’s Rules is a DVD where Chloe the puppet goes over all the rules for story time, including the most important rule, “to have fun.” This DVD encourages the kids to respond to it by answering questions and repeating phrases back in a way that is very similar to shows like Dora the Explorer.
At Mail Time there is one child volunteer that gets to come up and get the mail out of our mailbox and then the storyteller and child share the “Remember Verse.” This verse is also written on cards to take home, where we encourage parents to review them.
The Wardrobe of Wonder is a large chest that has clues about the story for that day. The kids get to guess what they think is going to be in the wardrobe and then they talk about how that object is going to be a part of the story.
The Big God Story is told by the storyteller who helps bring the story to life by asking the kids questions and having them act out parts of the story, which keeps them engaged with the story from God’s Word.
After the large group time is finished, the Pre-K class is walked back to their classroom and both the Kindergarten and Pre-K class meet for small group time. During the small group time, the teachers dig deeper into the lesson by doing several different activities each week. The activities include games, coloring, crafts, and talking about the story. Each part of the lesson is connected together and reinforces the Bible story through repetition, modeling, and discussing the story.
As a parent, if you are looking for additional resources to continue the learning at home, each classroom has a 1-page paper called The Home Front Weekly that features the lesson that they will learn the following week. It includes questions that you can ask your kids over dinner or before bed and the Bible verse that they are learning in class.
These are great tools to use during the week and will further prepare them for what they will be learning on Sunday.
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